Unfortunately for our shaky democracy, the U.S. has needed serious and frequent help in exposing the misuse and abuse of government power in recent years. Fortunately for our democracy, people like Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake and Jesslyn Radack have been paying attention.

What the former vice president did in ordering his aides Scooter Libby and Karl Rove to release the information about Valerie Plame’s identity was no different from Edward Snowden’s decision to contact the press about the NSA surveillance program. And yet, Cheney mysteriously has not been charged with espionage.

Scott Horton of Harper’s Magazine speaks with Craig Unger, contributing editor at Vanity Fair, about “Boss Rove,” Unger’s new expose of the unofficial godfather of the Republican Party and perhaps the greatest beneficiary of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, Karl Rove.

It’s not quite “Ozzie and Harriet with Security Clearances,” but there is something inescapably unedifying in watching the Wilsons bicker their way through the clichés of marital disaffection in a case that—let’s face it—was of small import in the context of the much larger crimes perpetrated by a pusillanimous power elite.

How exactly does an administration lose millions of e-mails? However it happened, 22 million Bush-era White House e-mails have been recovered, and more may be found. The content, however, probably won’t be made public for years.

Conservative columnist Robert Novak died Tuesday in Washington at 78 after fighting brain cancer since 2008. Novak’s career spanned half a century, but he knew many would most remember him for his central role in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame during the Bush II era.

Here’s a melding of celebrity and politics that might just be a natural: Academy Award™-winning actor and sometime international political analyst Sean Penn is in talks to play former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, husband of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, in director Doug Liman’s dramatic retelling of Plame’s story, currently known in deal-making circles as “Fair Game.”

The most recent stop in former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s book tour was Capitol Hill, where he testified about his own participation in the Valerie Plame affair and the involvement of both Bush and Cheney in attempting to cover up the treasonous tracks of 2007 felon of the year Scooter Libby.

Scott McClellan is making an important stop on Capitol Hill as he continues his book tour to tout that obscure memoir he wrote about being Bush’s press secretary. According to The Huffington Post, McClellan has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the Valerie Plame identity leak case and possibly other entries in the list of Bush’s Greatest Hits during McClellan’s time as presidential spokesman.

Poor I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. First, he was tossed under the bus in the kerfuffle over Valerie Plame’s identity leak. Now, as a result of same, Libby’s been stripped of his legal license in Washington, D.C.

In her new memoir, former CIA officer Valerie Plame tells of her shock as the Bush administration presented evidence in 2003 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction—“I knew key parts of it were wrong,” she says—as well as her take on her outing as a CIA employee.

Valerie Plame’s lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, “Scooter” Libby and Richard Armitage for allegedly conspiring to leak her identity as a CIA operative was dismissed on “jurisdictional grounds” without comment by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates on Thursday.

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson (above) had his day Wednesday at a House hearing about I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s controversial commutation, accusing President Bush and his men—Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Libby—of playing key roles in a “character assassination campaign” against him and his wife, outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, and of misleading the American people about the real reasons for the Iraq war.

No one should be celebrating July 4th more than I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who has been so liberated by certain of the nation’s top officials that he apparently breathes the same rarefied air—somewhere high above the law.

On Friday’s “Real Time,” Bill Maher eviscerated the Bush administration for outing Valerie Plame. There are no revelations here, but Maher’s hard-hitting analysis of the scandal will satisfy even the most Plame-exhausted viewer. Warning: HBO language.

Conan O’Brien casts his picks for the Hollywood version of Plame-U.S. Attorneys-Iraq-gate. With news that Warner Bros. plans to make the Valerie Plame Wilson story, this comedy routine feels somewhat prescient, although we seriously doubt Jabba the Hutt would agree to play Karl Rove.

Truthdig tips its hat this week to Valerie Plame Wilson, who packed quite a punch Friday during her first public testimony since her 2003 outing as a covert CIA operative. The ex-agent proved she was no slouch when it comes to speaking truth to power with her strong words about the Bush administration’s role in leaking her identity in 2003.

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame ripped into the Bush administration Friday for blowing her cover by leaking her identity to the press in 2003. Plame told Congress in her first public testimony that her name and identity were “carelessly and recklessly abused by senior officials in the White House and State Department,” pointing out the “terrible irony” of the circumstances surrounding her outing.

Truthdig tips its hat this week to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, whose talent for tackling high-stakes court cases without flinching or yielding to partisan pressures made him the ideal prosecutor for the I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby trial.

Variety reported Friday that Warner Bros. has bought the “life rights” (a somewhat alarming term) of former CIA agent Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, and plans to make a movie about their lives. In addition to using secondhand accounts of Plame’s outing by big players in the Bush administration, WB scribes may pull from her memoir, “if the CIA permits her to publish it.”

The defense has rested in “Scooter” Libby’s Plamegate trial after spending only three days (compared with the prosecution’s three weeks) making its case. Libby’s defense focused on discrediting prosecution witnesses and hyping the defendant’s allegedly bad memory.

The lawyer of alleged perjurer “Scooter” Libby revealed Tuesday that neither his client nor the vice president will testify for the defense. Dick Cheney would have been the first vice president to testify at a criminal trial, open to a range of uncomfortable questions from the prosecution.

Conflicted journalist Judith Miller added her damning testimony to a mounting heap on Tuesday, saying “Scooter” Libby did in fact reveal to her that Joseph Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. With more and more witnesses contradicting Libby’s account of events, his trial is starting to feel like a technicality on the way to a pardon.

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (above, center) testified Monday that “Scooter” Libby revealed Valerie Plame’s CIA status three days before he claims to have learned the information. Fleischer also said Libby mentioned that the matter was “hush-hush.”

We know: “Duh!” right? Well, here’s what’s new: The author of this article, using newly surfaced Libby testimony, all but accuses Cheney of outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent—which has been widely suspected but never confirmed. The National Journal’s Murray Waas (the country’s leading news-breaker on this story) has the scoop.